


The Fire Sage

by jalendavi_lady



Series: Avatar TLA: Vision 'Verse [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-13
Updated: 2010-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:52:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fire Sage Shyu was taken into military custody after the events at Crescent Island. What happened to him afterward?</p><p>WARNING: Contains cold blooded torture (non-bloody variant, physical appearance of injuries not clearly described) and its aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Shyu and his brother Fire Sages had been thrown into cooling cells within the hour Zhao took them into formal custody.

He did not see any of them after that.

It was a long journey. He had no way of knowing just how long. Food and water had come rarely, and the cell was deep below deck where no one walked without reason.

It was all he could do to try to keep warm enough to survive, to keep enough of his inner flame lit that he could manipulate other flames. He tried to use firebending techniques for the warmth, but one cannot bend and sleep at the same time.

He was aware of his exhausted fall to the cold floor on the fourth day. A few unconscious moments later, Shyu grandson of Kaja, last loyal Fire Sage in a line of last loyal Fire Sages, was a firebender no longer.

* * *

He knew his food had been drugged as he woozily fell to the floor.

The next thing he was aware of, he was slumped over against the corner in a windowless cell.

The air was chilly. Too chilly to recover his firebending.

He tried to ignore the metal table in the middle of the room. And the restraints on the table. And the metal bench bolted to the floor at the head of the table.

 _This is bad._

Even his father had only been banished...

When the guards came, it was four firebenders in their fighting prime versus a sixty-year-old sage who had lived his life in service to musty scrolls and a departed lord.

Shyu never stood a chance, and he knew it.

He would later wish that he had fought, during the long hours alone in the dark.

Not the least because when one fights in close quarters in a dungeon, particularly when completely outclassed, there is always the risk of being killed outright.

Once he was bound, they cut his clothing off and left him the scraps for a makeshift blanket.

* * *

This guard didn't walk like a firebender.

Shyu was already losing track of time. The ache in his stomach told him he had been missing meals, and food and water were the only markers of time this deep in the prison. Sleep was not a reliable way to tell even the passage of days, not at his age.

There was still a bit of sound out in the corridor, as if someone had come to watch whatever was about to unfold.

Someone who feared being identified, perhaps.

He remembered, then, the long hours of his youth reading the Martyr's Scrolls, wondering which would have been his father's fate if Fire Lord Azulon hadn't banished him instead. There had been times, it was said, when dead Fire Sages had reported their assailants to the spirits, and the spirits themselves had taken revenge.

Horrific revenge, sometimes.

His stomach growled in the silence.

 _They've been softening me up,_ he realized.

And the early removal of his firebending suddenly made sense - it wasn't just a matter of containing him.

The vast majority of Fire Sage martyrs had self-immolated after sustaining fatal injuries, taking at least a few of their enemies with them. There was endless speculation, centuries-old and still ongoing, on if it was really self-immolation or actually the spirit of the sun taking over the fate of his servants.

Either way, Shyu wasn't going to be burning in his own flames.

The guard leaned close to his face.

"Recant."

"Recant what? My vows? Forty-two years of service to the eternal flames? The bad poetry I wrote to the sun spirit when I was an acolyte?"

The guard scowled.

"Personally, I thought the recantation back _then_ ought to have been enough, but it was _very_ bad poetry."

The guard moved away, back towards the door, back towards Shyu's feet.

There was something in his hand.

"I had to clean the entire temple for six months as penance."

"You know _exactly_ what I mean."

The hand raised, and Shyu had just enough time to recognize the stickball bat held in it before it was swung down.

He screamed.

The blows were spaced, as if the guard was making sure the shock of one didn't prevent him from feeling the next.

It was working.

He finally lay there, gasping in his bonds. His left leg was a mass of agony from knee to ankle.

He tried to move his foot, and felt his fear double when it wouldn't.

The guard walked around to Shyu's right side, bat casually held against his shoulder in the classic batter's pose.

"Well?"

The threat was as clear as the pain and shock.

A little voice in the back of his head, the one he'd always imagined belonged to the author of the Martyr's Scrolls deep in the catacombs, said, _You are already dead, Shyu._

And it was true. He wouldn't be walking out of here. He was probably never going to so much as _sit up_ again in this life. And when all that had to be done to kill him even before the first blow had landed was to simply _walk away_ and let him die of thirst or hunger...

He swallowed, hard, and tried to make his voice firm.

"I. Serve. The. Ava..."

The bat fell.

* * *

Filthy water.

Moldy bread.

Juice so sour it _hurt_.

Meat nearly raw.

And never enough - always too little or being forced to eat too much.

He could feel the pressure sores building on his back and wrists, even through the constant haze of pain between his knees and his ankles.

He had no way of telling day or night, or how many of each had passed. Even so, eventually the thought entered his head.

 _I should be dead by now._

It was not long after that when the royal princess _skipped_ into his cell.

"You'd think if the spirits favored you that you'd be dead by now, wouldn't you?" she asked, leaning close enough over his face that he could smell her breath. "You should have died three times over by now, and yet you linger. In suffering."

He didn't answer.

"Oh, I thought you should know. Your precious Avatar died two weeks ago in Ba Sing Se."

He couldn't keep his eyes from widening.

"I suppose you will insist on taking some comfort in the fact it was a swift end he never saw coming. My brother flamed him out of the sky just as he entered the Avatar State."

 _  
**NO!**   
_

It was over.

The cycle was over.

"Of course, this means the new water tribe Avatar can never learn airbending. Oh, and the comet will have come and gone before he can even hold up his own head."

 _She doesn't know? The royal family was never taught how the cycle can end?_

The sages had always assumed Roku had told Sozin, back before their friendship soured.

She turned to leave, walked a few paces, and said over her shoulder, "I could make your passing quicker, you know. Just renounce your misguided allegiance, and your suffering can come to a swifter end."

It was the closest he had ever come to being tempted.

Which was still nowhere near close enough to consider accepting the offer.

The reincarnation cycle was over, but who knew what happened to the Avatar Spirit itself in such an event?

Shyu's family was loyal to _the_ Avatar, not _an_ Avatar.

"Never."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself."

And then she reached down and tweaked his right foot to the side slightly.

She was gone long before he managed to stop screaming.

* * *

He was almost getting used to the taste of the mold on the bread.

And then, something changed.

He had no way of being sure, but it seemed like a long time since anyone had come with water or food. Long enough his stomach had given up telling him how hungry he was.

 _Or you're just sleeping that much, and so close to death that your body has accepted that eating won't keep you alive._

He'd heard of that happening, to men close to the end. That along with the acceptance of fate that he'd long heard called Martyr's Calm.

He thought he was feeling that too, now.

He welcomed it.

The door was flung open, and a thin lanky man stood silhouetted by the torchlight beyond.

There was silence for a few heartbeats.

" _Fire Sage Shyu_?" The voice seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it.

His mouth was so dry his tongue didn't want to move. He managed a moan.

The man braced the door open, then approached him.

"It's going to be okay. Ozai fell from power. We're clearing out his political prisoners. We just have to be sure you're safe to move, and you'll be out of here and... Oh spirits!"

The man's head was turned towards Shyu's legs.

The man ran for the door, and disappeared into the bright beyond.

The light from the torches outside hurt Shyu's eyes, but it felt so good...

"Aang! Get the healers!"

 _Aang?_

"Why? Who have you found?" came a vague, distant response. The young Avatar's voice was unmistakeable.

 _It was a lie. He's alive._

He's **ALIVE**!

"I found _your_ Fire Sage!" It was triumph and sob all at once. "And he needs the healers _right now_!"

The sound of footsteps coming back.

The man entered again, walking towards Shyu's head.

"He'll be back with help soon."

And then the man got close enough for the torchlight to hit his face instead of backlight it into darkness.

He was a tallish teenager, not a fully grown man at all.

He was sporting a familiar facial scar.

 _Prince Zuko?_

And the crown hairpiece of the Fire Lord was crammed into his topknot, even if his clothing was decidedly _not_ the most recent form of the royal robes of office.

"Rest easy, Shyu. Help will be here soon." He sat on the bench and gently took Shyu's right hand in his own.

He wanted to thank him. He wanted to ask so many questions. But his mouth wouldn't work...

Zuko gasped. The hand let go. "No one knew you were down here." There was a sound of fumbling, and a moment later a waterskin was pressed against Shyu's lips.

Water, for the first time in days.

Clean water, for the first time in what must have been months given how far Zuko's hair had grown out.

"Spirits bless you, child," he finally managed to croak out when he'd had as much water as he could stand.

Zuko closed the waterskin, grinning weakly but clearly still disturbed. "Shh. You don't need to talk right now." He held Shyu's hand again. "Aang's a fully realized Avatar. There were benders of all four elements and members of all nations, including all three water tribes, at my coronation as honored guests.

"Sozin's War is over."

Shyu wept.

When his vision had cleared a bit, Zuko leaned closer, conspiratorially. "Would you believe Sozin's great-grandson taught the airbender Avatar firebending?"

"No," he breathed, playing along as well as he could.

He was still bound, but he felt so light...

"He still owes me hotsquats. _Lots_ of hotsquats." He looked up. "Don't you, Aang?"

"Yeah, lots of hotsquats." The voice was flat, disturbed. The boy was in the doorway, staring, and women in blue dresses stood behind him.

 _Water Tribe?_

* * *

 _Good. I managed to keep upbeat until Aang got back with them._

It had been hard. Zuko had never seen injuries that bad.

At least not on someone who was still alive at the time.

The fact he could only really see clearly out of one eye had not helped the initial shock for even one moment.

 _There should be infection by now. A raging one._

Katara took Aang by the shoulders and eased him over to the other end of the bench.

 _Stop kidding yourself, Zuko. This long, and there has to be gangrene hiding under those scraps of cloth._

"Mind help from waterbenders?" Katara asked. Zuko could hear tears there.

"Honored," Shyu managed to get out.

"Good," one of the masters said. She pulled up part of the loose cloth, and one of her companions held up a lamp. "Tui help us!"

"That bad?" Shyu whispered, in a voice that made it absolutely clear he already knew just how tenuous his condition was.

 _He knows this could still kill him._

Zuko squeezed his hand. "You're in good hands."

"And the good hands brought spirit water," Katara quipped.

Aang was on the bench between them, shocked into silence. Zuko saw tears on his cheeks.

 _Good thing he_ is _a fully realized Avatar now._

"Was this because of me?" he finally managed to squeak out.

"No... couldn't have stopped it... didn't cause it."

Zuko wrapped his free arm around Aang's shoulders.

"...I'd have been caught anyway someday..."

The waterbenders spread several blankets over him, from his chin down to just above his knees.

Shyu shivered under the extra cover.

Zuko felt his eyes widen and the scar pull. _He knows that's the amputation line if anything goes wrong. If they can't fix him..._

"Shyu," the master who had sworn earlier said, "my name is Kama. If..."

"Do what you need to do." There was a touch of fear in his voice, under the pain and weariness, and his hands convulsed under Zuko and Katara's.

They both nodded to Kama, signaling that they agreed he'd understood what she was asking.

He felt like joining in Aang's trembling. _Shyu just gave her permission to take his legs._

Even during the three years at sea, even the months wandering the Earth Kingdom, he'd never been around when someone had been given that choice. (He'd never been around when someone was too injured to make that choice themselves, either.)

This was a kind of bravery he'd never seen before, and it honestly frightened him.

He looked around, making sure he hadn't missed anything in the blur of his left eye's sight.

 _We need to get Aang out of here._ The thought came from seemingly nowhere.

And it wasn't just an impulse caused by Aang's crying and distress. There was something about this place...

"Shyu, does Aang _need_ to be here?"

"No." The answer was fast enough that Zuko wondered if the Fire Sage had already been looking for a dignified way to ask the young Avatar to leave.

A healer novice took the hint. "Come on, Aang. We can be just down the hall in case they need us for anything."

Everyone visibly relaxed once they were gone, even Shyu.

"I think that's one of the reasons for the traditional waiting until age 16," Kama quipped. "It's not a good thing to have a child Avatar around who no one feels okay ordering around."

"Why do you think we aren't letting him give Zuko those hotsquats he owes him until he comes of age?" Katara asked.

The look that flashed across Shyu's face was not something Zuko liked seeing. "Only so there's someone he _has_ to at least _listen_ too. And that still includes _my_ obligations towards _him_ as his sifu. Considering it was Sozin who took every authority figure Aang did have away from him... it's fitting, in a way. And now we'll have you around to balance both of us out."

"My loyalties..."

"...are right where they need to be. I need someone _within_ the Fire Nation willing to tell me when I'm about to go completely overboard, Shyu. That means someone who _isn't_ subordinate to the Fire Lord, and that's part of what the traditional role of the Fire Sages _was_."

Shyu squeezed his hand.

 _Good. Another ally._

Kama walked up with a folded blanket and a waterskin. "Now, to get you a bit more comfortable... I'd get your hands free, but the less you move right now the better."

Five minutes later, Shyu's head was resting on a makeshift pillow and a huge developing pressure sore hidden under his hair had been given its first healing treatment by Katara.

"Is that what you're going to do to my legs?" he murmured.

"A lesser form, but yes," Kama told him. "And it's not going to feel anywhere near as nice." She held up a little vial. "This will dull a significant amount of the pain, lessen the discomfort of us healing you, and as a side effect will make you not feel like talking much, which is why I needed your permission before I gave this to you."

"I understand."

Ten minutes later, the Fire Sage relaxed, an almost beatific look on his face. "Thank you," he whispered.

"Stay with him," Kama told Zuko and Katara. "He will still be aware of what's happening to and around him. If he manages to sleep, let him."

Within moments, the healing glow had begun.

Zuko watched for a very little while, before quickly realizing that what he was actually seeing was a group of waterbenders using a man's own fluids to move shards of his leg bones back into position, quickly feeling ill again, and quietly announcing, "I can't watch."

He shifted how he was seated, took the crown headpiece off and stuck it in a pocket of his robes intended for just that purpose, leaned over until his forehead was resting on the unused corner of the 'pillow', and murmured, "Do you mind?"

Shyu's answer was a squeeze of his hand and turning his head the tiny bit that put their temples in physical contact.

Zuko was glad no one could see the tears that sprang to his eyes.

He wondered, then, just what Shyu would think if he knew the man comforting him was a member of more than just _Sozin_ 's bloodline...

* * *

"And then they fell asleep?" Toph asked in disbelief.

Nearly everyone laughed.

They were sprawled around the room that had been Aang's alone just that morning.

Katara was half dozing on the bed, Toph was sitting cross-legged on the floor, Sokka was sitting in a chair with his injured leg propped up on an ottoman older than Iroh, Suki was perched on the ottoman's front edge, Zuko had claimed part of the bed because he had been walking the prison corridors all morning and doing paperwork on former prisoners all evening thank-you-very-much, and Shyu was resting on a pallet of blankets and cushions on the floor right in the sunlight streaming through the window, Aang and Mai to either side of him.

The older man's legs were covered in casts, and the metal ends of braces underneath stuck through the burlap and plaster in places. "Well, the drug the healers gave me _does_ work. And it was the first time I've been warm and out of pain in months."

He was in good spirits now. Zuko knew it wasn't likely to last and was at least partially forced, but it was better than the fear in that dark cell.

And, no doubt, part of it was the boost in chi from being exposed to his element for the first time in those same months - which was the sole reason he was in the sunlight under the window instead of up on the bed - as well as the not at all negligible fact Shyu had managed to generate a very weak flame an hour ago after insisting against protests that he _had_ to _try_.

Plus, he was still on heavy painkillers, and after months in that much constant agony the man deserved a day at the very least of smiles, proper care, and rest before confronting just how much - or how little - recovery he was realistically going to make.

 _At least these are wounds sustained while holding fast to his honor. He'll be respected for enduring this._

Shyu was propped up against Mai, and she was carefully helping him eat his way through a bowl of porridge. As she'd stressed to everyone, she _was_ the only person in the room who had any real experience caring for siblings young enough to need support for their heads while eating, and that was _exactly_ the level of care Shyu needed at the moment.

The northern healers had patched his bones, Katara had worked on his joints and the pressure sores, but Shyu's muscles were weak from disuse and no Water Tribe healing techniques could fix that or reaccustom his stomach to real food.

 _Or put the calcium back into his bones,_ Zuko thought darkly.

That had been the one most important vital nutrient missing from what the guards had given Shyu as 'food', and his body had begun draining the bone shards to keep the rest of him in working order. The healers had only been able to do so much, and the braces inside the casts were there to keep the bones from fracturing again before a proper diet could make them less brittle.

It was bad enough that they had all feared moving his legs enough to get the braces and casts on him.

"And I was up late in the archives last night with some of the Fire Sages and the Minister Of Justice, trying to figure out what to expect when we cleared out the prison. I had safe people around me and my forehead was on something soft, so..."

Toph snickered.

Shyu sighed.

All attention was suddenly back on him.

"I was just thinking how good it is to have a Fire Lord who considers a group of waterbenders and an Avatar-loyal Fire Sage to be 'safe people'."

Everyone cheered.

Zuko felt his cheeks heat.


	2. Chapter 2

Zuko was sixteen, newly confirmed as Crown Prince instead of mere Heir-Presumptive, and his father was showing him the royal prison outside the capital.

"This building was constructed in the reign of your great-grandfather Sozin," Fire Lord Ozai told him. "It was completed not long before the comet came."

There was a pause, and Ozai glanced back at him.

"When he wiped out the airbenders' population centers," he responded to the silent prompt.

They were getting very deep into the hallways. Very deep down, as well. He could almost feel the weight above them, the sheer amount of rock between him and the sun's light.

His father nodded, and the slight bit of recognition made his heart soar.

Most of his training had been with tutors, of course, even before that horrible year when Fire Lord Azulon had died in his sleep a month after Crown Prince Iroh drowned fighting the last waterbender in the Northern Water Tribe - 'following his son in his old age and grief', everyone had said. Lu Ten had helped Zuko learn firebending - the former heir-to-the-heir said he was perfectly content not ever being on the throne himself, and given his personality everyone believed him and said it was for the best.

The ladies at court had finally given up on becoming surrogate mother figures for he or his little sister. They didn't need a mother, they had barely ever had a mother, and they had done just fine for themselves after she'd gotten caught indulging in high treason the year after Azula's birth.

Even with Azulon observing them for signs of taint for years - _How could Azula have been tainted, she was barely even starting to be weaned?_ \- and being told over and over to forget the childhood rhymes she'd been teaching him, even the seemingly harmless little cycle of seasons poem that started at the wrong element, there had been women trying to use the royal children as a way to favor.

No taint had ever been found, of course, and Zuko barely remembered the slightest details about what he'd been ordered to forget. Generalities, of course, would only make it easier for him to recognize the same treason later and report it to the Fire Lord - or stamp it out himself, once that day came - and so he was allowed to retain that much without dishonor.

They came to a stop outside a door in the end of the hall. There was a guard at the door. He bowed. "He's been quiet today, Lord."

The Fire Lord nodded.

The door had an impressive bar across it, and all his training to be silent fell away in the face of his curiosity. "Father?"

"You want to know what's behind that door, don't you?" There was a slyness in the Fire Lord's voice.

Zuko was silent.

"It's what I brought you here to see."

He brightened again. That meant he'd been curious about the right thing today. It wasn't even close to praise, but coming from Ozai...

The Fire Lord signaled for the door to be opened, and Zuko leaned forward where he stood to try to see around the door as it swung outward, the guard keeping a firm grip on it.

"Well, go have a look," Ozai practically laughed.

Zuko stepped forward.

There was... a man inside the cell, chained to a metal table with his hands manacled at either side of his head. He was covered in a rough blanket. The walls of the cell were metal, and Zuko suddenly realized that the door was made of the same material.

He was a very old man, grey hair receding high above some faded mark on his forehead that almost looked like...

 _**AIRBENDER!** _

Zuko backed up quickly, instinctively using his firebender breath control to get as much precious air as he could hold into his lungs as quickly as he could.

Now Ozai was really laughing. "Good, good. You remembered your lessons well. I doubt he can hurt even you, though. He went blind and deaf during your grandfather's reign."

Even with Ozai's half-mocking reassurance, Zuko's mind was racing through all the stories he'd ever heard. Airbenders could suck the air from you in battle, taking both firebending and breath, your very _life_ , in a single gesture.

A few were still found in the former Earth Kingdom every couple of years. Even just _surviving_ a battle with one brought almost as much honor and acclaim as conquering a dragon.

There was even a legend that during the attack when the comet last came, and the airbenders were very nearly wiped out, a single master airbender had taken over _thirty_ firebending masters with him before he finally died.

Even the power of the comet could not save someone from the airbenders.

 _Why?_

His father seemed to sense the question. "That, Prince Zuko, is the greatest of Fire Lord Sozin's war trophies."

He felt his eyes widen. For some reason, he felt safe asking questions right now. "Why metal? He's not an earthbender."

Ozai threw his head back and laughed so hard he roared.

The man on the table visibly trembled in his bonds.

* * *

Zuko sat upright, eyes so wide it pulled on his scar. He was sweating.

A few breaths later, he placed himself.

He was on the bed in what had been Aang's room at the palace.

Shyu and Aang were still fast asleep on a pile of blankets on the floor where the sun's light would hit them through the window in the morning, the Fire Sage's arm curled protectively around the thin body of the Avatar.

He found himself suddenly sobbing quietly where he sat on top of the sheets. _None of it was real. Aang's safe. No Avatar was ever kept in that room._

And then it hit him.

 _That's what made me so uneasy. It's not a room built to hold someone from any of the four nations, it's built to hold someone with the potential for all types of bending. They were holding Shyu in a cell built to hold the target of his allegiance._

He felt ill.

His father _was_ sick.

 _Hold the Avatar's Fire Sage in a cell meant for the Avatar. Set a descendant of an Avatar to capture the Avatar - and even if he had no clue Mother was descended from Roku, he **has** to have known her father grew up on Roku's island._

Now he really felt ill.

Something stirred behind him. "Zuko?" Katara asked sleepily.

Right. She'd been there too, seeing to Shyu's further treatment, and after sunset they had all decided to shelter in place. The others had left after dinner.

"Nightmare vision."

He felt her shift to get up, and felt the weight of her hand on his shoulder. "Want to talk about it?"

He shook his head, then thought again. "It was what could have been if Aang hadn't run away."

She sucked in air, and it reminded him so much of himself in the dream that it _hurt_.

"We have to destroy the room Shyu was being held in." His whisper was firm.

"Why?"

"Remember how we couldn't understand why some of the hardware was the way it was? The smooth nuts?"

"Yes."

He turned around, and whispered in her ear, "Because those can't be opened by airbenders. There's nothing for wind to push on."

He heard her catch a gasp before it could wake the others.

He backed away a bit. "That prison was built by Sozin _before_ the comet came."

Katara's eyes went to Aang.

Zuko nodded.

"Now neither of us are going to be able to sleep until we get rid of that place," she grumbled.

"I think a Fire Lord should be able to find a sledgehammer in the middle of the night..."

* * *

It was the first time since the Western Air Temple that Zuko had honestly scared her.

The Agni Kai during Sozin's Comet had been different. She had understood exactly where the extra power had come from, and had actually had a great appreciation for the beauty of Zuko's firebending forms with that much power behind them. They weren't as pretty as waterbending, of course, but...

This was different.

Zuko was personally breaking the table down with a sledgehammer, and years wandering had given the young Fire Lord the upper body strength to do it.

 _That and being a swordfighter already used to training the strength in both arms,_ she reminded herself.

It had been made of metal, but not the way metal was done in the Earth Kingdom. Not the way earthbender cells had been constructed in the past decade.

Zuko was even breaking the bolts, it was so weakly constructed.

The cell had been made to contain anything from a toddler Avatar who had just selected the ancient relic toys of detection for the first time (they'd found the tiny delicate shackles lying in a corner, and Katara had pounded them flat herself after Zuko heated them soft) to a fully realized adult Avatar.

It had not been made to contain a determined and angry Fire Lord with a sledgehammer.

And, judging from what she could catch of the litany of sins he was reciting under his breath, he was working out a great deal of pent-up emotional baggage with his ancestors.

"This is for the recruits my father sent to die. This is for Kaja. This is for Shyu's _legs_. This is for Cousin. This is for my mother. This is for her mother."

That wasn't what was scaring her, and it took a moment to realize what actually was.

Zuko looked something like Roku had destroying the Crescent Island temple. None of the glowing, none of the sheer power an Avatar could command, but all of the terrible intensity.

Maybe it was a firebender thing.

"And this is for making my great-grandmother cry!"

It was clear from the way he said it that he intended this to be the final blow, that it was enough of an offense to be worthy of his final blow.

His feet lifted off the ground on the downswing.

The table broke apart completely.

"I don't think even Toph could figure out how it was supposed to fit together now, Zuko," she said in the still that followed.

His shoulders were heaving.

He turned towards her, and there were tears on his cheeks.

He held out the sledgehammer. "Your turn."

"Zuko, no one is going to be able to put that back together again."

"Katara, do you have any idea what I saw in my vision tonight?"

She shook her head. "No. Not beyond what you already told me."

He took a deep heaving breath. "A world where my _mother_ was publicly executed for high treason when I was _three_. A world where Uncle Iroh _drowned_ trying to take the Northern Water Tribe when I was ten. A world where I was the perfect crown prince without _any_ of the things Mother or Uncle taught me getting in the way. A world where my father brought me down here after I turned sixteen to show off Sozin's greatest _trophy_ from the airbender genocide, bound alone in the dark for a hundred years and gone blind and deaf from age and _neglect_."

He was practically spitting at the end.

Her blood felt like ice.

 _Aang..._

"This room wasn't meant to simply contain Avatars. It was built to keep them _alive_."

She could taste acid in the back of her throat. The sheer horror of what Zuko had said rose in her mind, even beyond the fact this room had been planned to hold _Aang_.

Sozin had designed this room.

 _How do you plan to do something like this to the reincarnation of your best friend?_

Katara stepped forward and took the sledgehammer from him. Zuko moved out of her way and into the hallway.

She couldn't lift the sledgehammer as high as Zuko had, and she certainly wasn't swinging it with his force, but it was wonderful catharsis to help destroy this symbol of Sozin's perfidy.

"That's for my mother. That's for Yue. That's for Hama. These are for all the other waterbenders. This is for Jeong Jeong. This is for the years without my father. These are for the sky bison herds. These are for the air temples. This is for Monk Gyatso..."

Most of Zuko's list had been offenses against the people of the Fire Nation. Katara's spanned the world.

"These are for the people of Ba Sing Se. This is for Lu Ten. These are for the jailed earthbenders. This is for the penguins covered in black snow..."

And finally her arms began to give way, and she ended it with the offense that had started it all.

"And this is for murdering your best friend, you *clang* sick *clang* ERGH!"

The handle slid from her fingers on the final downstroke. The floor was dented where the sledgehammer's head hit the metal plates.

She sunk to the floor, sobbing.

After a moment's hesitation, Zuko knelt next to her, wrapped an arm and a significant portion of his cloak around her, and tucked her head under his chin.

While she was crying over the sins of his family.

She could tell by his breathing that he was still quietly crying himself.

After a moment, she whispered, "For who?"

"Mother's grandmother." After a long questioning silence, he added, "She was a noble who lived on Roku's island when the eruption came. I overheard Mom whispering about it once."

"Did she know him?"

"It was a small island, and he was born to and had married within the noble class. He probably knew all of her family."

More quiet.

She'd never thought of Zuko as possibly having any connection at all to Avatar Roku except through Sozin's betrayal and a shared nationality, but given Roku's noble birth and a hundred years of marriages and friendships she ought to have realized _some_ other connection was inevitable.

 _"This is for making my great-grandmother cry!"_

She shivered.

"Who for you?"

 _"Zuko, **please** tell me these aren't what I think they are," as the little pair of manacles and matching leg-irons lay in a century of gathered dust._

Asking Aang a question as they stood on volcanic rock, "Even after Roku showed him mercy, Sozin betrayed him like that?"

Watching the procession of effigies in Chin's village, centuries after the conqueror's death.

Sitting at Gran-Gran's feet as a small girl, her mother's arms around her, as the elder told of Avatar Kuruk and his lost love.

Something welled up inside her. "All of them."

Zuko didn't ask what she meant.

* * *

"Where were you?" Aang complained as they straggled back in at three in the morning. Shyu's eyes were bright but drifting shut beside him. "If anything had happened..."

"Then that's what the guards at the door are for, and the healers who are staying down the hall too," Katara reasoned with him.

"But..."

"Aang, there was something that needed doing quickly. It's over, don't worry about it, go back to sleep."

"What was it?" Shyu asked weakly.

Zuko sighed. "Destroying the room you were held in."

Stunned silence.

He pressed on. "Remember how disturbed I got?"

"Yes," Aang said.

"He figured out why," Katara said.

 _Yes, he doesn't need to know about the vision itself..._

Aang looked at him expectantly.

"That prison was constructed just before the last passing of the comet. As far as I can now tell, it was built as camoflauge for the existence of that one cell." He looked Shyu in the eye. "There is nothing you could have done to get out of there, Shyu. Even in the height of your prime.

"That room was built to hold Avatars, and unless I'm completely wrong Sozin based the design off of what he knew Roku was capable of."

The room went completely silent.

He hadn't even voiced that suspicion to Katara yet.

"There were _years_ between Roku's return and Sozin's attempt to gain him as an ally before starting the war. I've read the record in the catacombs, I know they were best friends since _birth_ , there's no way Sozin _wasn't_ pumping him for knowledge of other bending traditions during every sparring match. Not when he was secretly planning a war against benders of those traditions." He took a deep breath. "That's why it was still damp down there. Avatars are weakest in their opposing element, and Sozin was nationalistic enough to have never let himself meet a waterbender strong enough to pull water from air or believed it possible."

Aang had curled up on himself, clinging to Shyu like a security blanket.

Katara had plopped down on the bed, face in her hands and shoulders shaking.

There were tears on Shyu's cheeks. "Are you sure?"

"The table wasn't the only set of bonds in the room. The smallest was sized for a three-year-old. I don't know of any other reason anyone would ever _want_ to _shackle_ a toddler."

"Spirits above..."

Zuko nodded. He sat down beside Aang, resting a hand on the child's shoulder - for he was _still_ a child, and it showed now as Zuko had never seen it show before. "We went after it with a sledgehammer, Aang. _Maybe_ Toph could put it back together now. No one else would have a chance. It's not a threat to you or to any of your future reincarnations now. And hopefully we did it soon enough that no one else had a chance to realize what it was and record enough to replicate it."

"Sifu..."

"Think you can get some more sleep?"

"I don't know."

"Try. I'm sorry we woke you, but we _had_ to destroy that place tonight." He got up. "Shyu... I..."

"You are nothing like the rest of Sozin's heirs." The old man held his gaze. "I don't know how or why, but you aren't. If yesterday weren't enough proof of it, or tonight, the way Avatar Roku saved you when he destroyed the Temple _even though you were hunting Aang_ would be enough for me. He must have seen something in you to do that."

Zuko bowed formally. "Thank you." He straightened. "I think I need to go back to my own rooms for the rest of the night. If I'm needed, the guards in the hallway know where to find me."


	3. Chapter 3

Zuko had just laid his head down on his own pillow and closed his eyes when he heard a man's voice talking softly in his ear. The speaker was old, and had all the inflection habits Zuko had come to associate with master firebenders.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to catch you alone, young man?"

He started, rolling himself over to face whoever it was before he'd finished opening his eyes.

He wasn't in his room any longer.

"Where.. Who are you?" he demanded, trying to get his bearings.

He found the speaker, and knew instantly.

The man was tall, and old, and had the long hair and beard many benders past their primes had favored before the war.

And Zuko would have known the ornament on his topknot anywhere.

He dropped to the ground again, scrambling to make a proper full bow even though he _knew_ the images that posture would send into his head.

"I'm sorry," he pleaded as the fear rose. "I didn't know..."

He heard him walk closer. "Zuko."

"Please..."

There was a sigh, and two hands pulled up on his shoulders until he sat up.

The emotional feedback loop broke.

"Zuko, if I wanted to hurt you I would have just left you in chains on Crescent Island."

"And then Aang wouldn't have had a firebending teacher."

"No, then Iroh wouldn't have had a reason to keep faking his allegiance to his brother's rule."

"With no heir besides Azula."

"Zuko, Sozin was well above Iroh's age when Azulon was conceived. Despite the pain of losing Yu Wen and Lu Ten both, Iroh _could_ have produced an heir of his own flesh _if_ his nation needed one badly enough."

Zuko sniffled from the emotional stress, and then felt ashamed at acting like a child.

Roku sat down beside him. "You've had so much to fight against, so many things to learn and unlearn. And you stayed true to who you" - he gently bumped Zuko's shoulder - "are."

Zuko sat up. "No, I didn't. I was a disgrace to our family." he squeezed his eyes shut. "To your memory."

"This from a Fire Lord who has never actually personally killed with intent? Who _always_ listened to a philosophy of balance except when a disdain trained for years was triggered?"

"I'm sorry for calling Uncle's praising of the other elements 'Avatar stuff'."

"But you listened to him anyway."

Silence.

"Why are you here?"

A slight laugh. "An old man can't wish his great-grandson well on the occasion of his coronation?"

Zuko's head came up. "Really?"

"Really." Roku wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I'm quite proud of you, actually."

"Why? I _hunted_..."

"And were actually in conflict with that goal once it came in sight." A firming of the hug. "Your heart told you one thing, and years of training another. Under a year for you to completely reject everything your father and grandfather taught you. For most, that would have taken a lifetime."

A pause, then Zuko couldn't keep it in any longer. "I'm clumsy."

"You're clumsy?"

"And slow. And..."

"Zuko, not every Avatar is a bending prodigy the way Aang is. I fell flat on my face, tripped over tree roots, crashed a glider into the side of the Southern Air Temple, slid on more ice than I care to remember... And all that was after years of sparring with an actual prodigy. Yes, I gained grace with age. But at sixteen? I was worse than you were."

Zuko couldn't quite get his mind around that.

"Your peers have always been prodigies. Azula, for starters. Aang, youngest airbending master in the century of his birth, if not longer. Katara, an undertrained prodigy who taught herself the basics of combat waterbending with no older benders to watch and figured out elementary healing by instinct alone. Toph, who would have been a legend within her lifetime even if she could see. There's no shame in not matching their power or speed of learning, even if being prodigies does run in your _father's_ family." Roku chuckled. "And you had the added distinct disadvantage of first learning a warped firebending philosophy that ran counter to your very nature.

Zuko nodded. "So... you aren't mad at me?"

"I helped break the world by not removing Sozin from his office or the world of the living when I had the chance, Zuko. You and Aang are both fixing my mistakes. Both of you have suffered greatly from my errors. I can't very well hold things against you that I, ultimately, caused."

"Can... can I ask you something?"

Another squeeze. "Of course."

"Where's Mom? Father wouldn't say."

"If you are meant to find her, you will in due time."

"Why are you being so cryptic?"

Roku laughed. "Because it's your own search to make, young man. And if there's anyone who would move the heavens to see you again, it would be her."

"She risked everything for me."

"More than you know."

"She _killed_ to save my life, and nearly _died_ birthing me - and I nearly repaid her by never taking breath. What else is there?"

"She risked her neck _naming_ you, for one thing."

"How? 'Resurrected Rule', 'Prince Lucky To Be Born', simple as that. It took long enough for me to start crying that the Palace Physician thought I'd _died_ on my way out of Mom, and it was _days_ before they knew either of us was certain to live. Simple."

"Yes... and no."

"You're being cryptic again."

"They were in hiding. Her, her family. She was taught to hide from a very young age."

"The stories. The verses. There are things hidden in them."

Roku nodded.

"Wait a minute..." He sounded things out in his head. "I'm... named after _you_?"

"In a way she could dare risk, yes."

It was almost as much a shock as learning of the family connection in the first place.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Everything."

"You're sorry for teaching Aang firebending?"

"Of course not!"

"That's a part of 'everything'."

Zuko couldn't keep the corner of his mouth from twitching upwards.

"And you've done an excellent job of it."

Zuko felt himself blush. Then, "Is it okay that I'm making him owe me those hotsquats?"

"Of course. He's still a very young boy, and he needs to have someone to look up to."

"He has you. And the other Avatars."

"None of us belong to his era. Not even the one he was _born_ to. He needs you and his other friends."

Silence again.

"Shyu."

"A man highly favored by the spirits."

" _Can_ he ever get he strength in his legs back?"

"No one I ever heard of survived injuries like that. No one I ever heard of used that much spirit water in one healing session on one person's wounds."

"So you don't know. And the other Avatars probably don't either."

"Correct."

Zuko pushed his hair back with his hand, frustrated.

"It's a miracle he's still alive," Roku reminded him.

Zuko nodded. "That's what makes this so terrifying."

"He _is_ favored, Zuko. And not just by the sun spirit. Without that favor, he would have died."

"And after the euphoria of seeing the sun again and being free to move around wears off, he may wish he had died!"

"What will you do if he does?" Roku's voice was soft, reasoning.

Zuko felt like groaning. _It's bad enough when Uncle Iroh pulls an Uncle Iroh._ "Aang and I would probably remind him of how much we need him - and we _do_. And I would remind him that injuries sustained by martyrs or near-martyrs are wounds of honor, just in case shame was involved in the thoughts. Then I'd see if there was some physical complaint that could be treated or a limitation that could be worked around."

No reaction.

"And I need to get him in contact with Teo and his father anyway. Even if Shyu does eventually heal enough to walk, he's going to need a chair in the interim. Probably more than one - Teo's isn't built to work with Fire Nation tables, but Shyu needs to keep his legs fairly horizontal for months even if the healing sessions keep working. He'll need one that lets him recline now, and another later that lets him sit upright."

Still no response.

Zuko pulled away, looking at Roku's face for any sign of approval or disapproval. "Is that right?"

Roku smiled wryly and chuckled. "You're the Fire Lord."

"But..."

"It's _your_ authority and _your_ decision. And you can't let yourself get used to depending on too much outside guidance. Even from Aang."

"Because he's responsible for the world, and I'm responsible for the Fire Nation. What's good for one isn't always good for the other, and I've got to be an advocate for my own nation."

" _And_ because if anything should ever happen to him, it will be sixteen _years_ before the world knows the identity of his successor. Longer until the new Avatar is trained, fully realized, and ready to be a voice of reason several _decades_ younger than you. During that time, you, the Earth King, and the Water Tribe chieftains will be on your own again."

Zuko felt his mouth drop open.

It was too horrible to think about. Of course Aang was always going to be there. The Fire Lords were long lived, but not as long as Avatars. No one would dare do anything to Aang, not anything like what had happened to Roku.

They would grow old together, fixing what had been broken, and then Aang would guide Zuko's heir through at the least the first decade of his own reign. That would ensure two balanced Fire Lords in a row, and make certain the changes Zuko had already started putting into place.

"Avatars are not in any way immortal, Zuko. Anything that could kill you can kill him. I died young for an Avatar, but I am nowhere near the shortest-lived. And even if you do outlive him, the next Fire Lord likely will not, and will have looked to you for an example of how the relationship between the Avatar and a national ruler is supposed to work.

"You have to be _partners_ , once his need for a sifu is gone. And while he needs a sifu, he will need to be looking up to _you_ , not the other way around."

Zuko grimaced.

"That's being a head of state, Zuko. Get used to it." The old man smiled at him. "And speaking of your duties, I think you likely need undisturbed sleep the rest of the night after all you did today."

Zuko nodded, and decided for one last try for answers. "Is there anything you _do_ know about Shyu's chance of recovery?"

"Only that he will recover enough."

"'Enough'? Enough for what?"

The answer was an enigmatic smile, then a good-natured laugh at Zuko's reaction. "You'll understand in time, Zuko. You're really quite good at figuring things out yourself, no matter what your father and sister may have told you. If you'll think for a moment, you'll notice you haven't asked me about the changes you need to make for the good of our nation, because you feel you've already figured them out _yourself_. And that I haven't felt the need to correct you."

Zuko smiled at the compliments, the great-grandfatherly affirmation, and at the clear affection in Roku's voice.

And then it was morning, and he was blinking awake in his own bedchamber in the palace.

With the weight of a broken nation pressing down on his shoulders.

Alone.


	4. Chapter 4

Zuko arrived at Shyu's room to find his friends, includiing Aang, clustered outside in the hall. "Good morning. Why...?"

"Teo and the Mechanist are in there with him," Katara reported. "Teo overheard one of the healers last night, and Mai let them in when they showed up this morning. Teo thought being able to go from room to room, even if someone needed to push him and even if he was still stuck in the palace, would be good for Shyu while he's healing."

Zuko sighed with relief. "That keeps me from having to find them later today. I had the same idea."

"It's been a rough morning," Mai reported.

"Last night can't have helped."

"That wasn't it." Aang reached out and squeezed his hand. "The painkillers wore off before anyone woke up this morning."

"And since he's used to sleeping through pain," Suki continued, "he didn't wake up until Aang did."

Katara looked down at her feet. "And I didn't think to check the time, because he was asleep and looked like he was doing fine. He honestly didn't feel it until he started waking up."

"The Mechanist said he'd cobble together a medication timer tonight," Sokka said. "He just needs to modify a timer invention we used to keep track of time during the eclipse."

"The northern healers are coming by again this afternoon," Katara told him. "They said it'll be weeks before his diet can adjust to what it really needs to be, so I should be able to go to Ba Sing Se as planned without damaging his recovery. That and Kama wants to document as much of this as she can, so that they have records of as much of his recovery as they can get, so it may be months before she thinks of going north again."

Ba Sing Se.

Zuko had almost forgotten that there was a trip planned so they could celebrate with Iroh.

Toph was sitting on the floor. "Personally, I think he's handling this pretty well even now. He knows he's got a lot of people looking out for him. If I understand everything I've heard correctly, he hasn't been around even one person who thought it was acceptable for anyone to be loyal to the Avatar since his father was banished when he was younger than I am. The only exception was the day Roku's Temple burned. So this is the first time in his life when he isn't hiding what he thinks or being punished for his beliefs."

Mai didn't react. Neither did Zuko. _We both know what that kind of life is like._

The others shuddered.

"And then instead of grudging acceptance, he had yesterday and last night. Plus, he's being given all this help without having to even tell us he needs it. With the shape he was in, I wouldn't be surprised if they had been using his physical condition as a bargaining chip to force him into recanting. He's probably completely overwhelmed."

There was a long silence.

A guard came walking up the corridor and bowed. "Fire Lord, the water tribesman Huu wishes to speak to you. He said it concerns the Fire Sage."

* * *

Huu was waiting under the tree beside the turtleduck pond.

"You wanted to speak with me?"

"The medicine of we who live in the swamp is different than what you are used to."

"You think you have something that can help Shyu? Please, any help is welcome..."

Huu shook his head. "I know how he survived."

"...how?"

"My tribe takes our medicines from the swamp around us."

Zuko nodded. "We do the same with the plants in our jungles. So?"

"Some of my cousins were helping in the prison last night. The molds in the food there are related to several of our medicine strains."

"What?"

Huu nodded. "Our strains for pain relief. Another we use in the treatment of some blood diseases. A relative of our most effective cure for infections. Others. If Shyu was being fed that bread, he was being unknowingly treated for his injuries."

Zuko stood there, dumbfounded.

 _Roku said Shyu was favored by the spirits. That he would have died if he wasn't favored._

Is this what he meant?

"This is going to sound odd, but is there any spirit associated with your medicines?"

Huu smiled. "How could there be anything odd with wanting to give proper credit to the spirits?"

Zuko smiled.

"We believe them to be gifts of the moon and her companions the stars."

* * *

Zuko burst into the room.

Aang and Mai were next to Shyu again, Katara on the floor beside them. Sokka and Suki were sitting together on the bed. Toph was sitting in the corner by the window, picking her toes.

"Huu knows how Shyu survived," he announced, rather out of breath.

The Fire Sage stirred. "How?"

"The mold in the bread. It's related to several kinds the Foggy Swamp Tribe use for medicine. One of their healers thinks some of the prison strains are more potent than the cultivated and wild forms in the swamp. They're already collecting samples to take home with them when they leave."

Stunned silence.

"' _Mold_ '?" Sokka finally managed to repeat.

"Mold." Zuko met the other teen's eyes. "According to Huu, traditional swamp beliefs and legends hold that their medicinal strains are the gifts of the moon spirit and her companion stars."

"Then again, I guess Southern Water Tribe medicine must seem pretty weird to them too."

Katara shook her head.

Zuko sat down on the floor beside Mai.

"Fire Lord..." Shyu began.

Zuko shook his head. "You're my guest, and Aang's, staying in the room I had set aside for him in the royal wing of the palace. No titles here." _And no titles from you, ever, if I can manage a way that won't make you look like you have no sense of shame or decorum._

"Aang and I have been talking..."

"We'd talked about needing help in the archives, remember?"

Zuko nodded.

"Well, I was thinking that there's really no reason that person couldn't just be sitting the entire time. And the Fire Temple here has ramps going everywhere, even if just as secret passages and not the normal path. So technically, Shyu could help us, as soon as he's fit to be in a chair like Teo's."

"And I'd be glad to help. I spent my childhood wandering those archives. Any scroll you can name, I've probably dusted it."

Zuko couldn't help but smile. He reached over to put a hand on Shyu's shoulder. "That can all wait. Right now, just focus on your own recovery. And _then_ you can help us fix the Fire Nation and the world. Besides, the initial set of changes is still unfolding. I want to let the repercussions shake out before we plan the second set in detail. There's no rush for your involvement in anything, Shyu. There's over a century of bad policy involved; no need to rush and make things worse somehow."

Shyu smiled weakly.

"We've got a planned trip to Ba Sing Se in a few weeks, to celebrate with my uncle. When Aang and I get back, we'll talk."

"We'll talk," Shyu confirmed, closing his eyes.

Zuko smiled at him. _That's right. Just rest. Heal as much as you can, and the rest of us will figure out how to help you cope with whatever won't heal._

And then he almost grinned, because he thought he knew what Roku had meant by "enough".

He saw tears suddenly roll down Shyu's face. "The mold?" he sobbed.

Zuko squeezed his shoulder. Aang and Mai reached for his hands.

Zuko almost whispered, "The mold."


End file.
